


Renaissance

by Evehs_Lullaby



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season/Series 05, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:34:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24663160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evehs_Lullaby/pseuds/Evehs_Lullaby
Summary: It wasn’t that Kara had secrets and lied to her about being Supergirl that had awoken Lena’s beast. That would have been too...easy and mundane a reason for so desperately trying to fix the world. It hadn’t been much about Kara’s lies at all. Lena has secrets, too.Splits from canon from the very beginning. Honestly, I just wanted to do a re-imagining of Lena's season 5 arch and divert her motivations from what is canon. I've cross posted on ff.net under my main pseudonym JustAnotherPseudonym
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

There had been no reason for what she had done, none that she could actively point to and hold onto as her unrelenting truth. Her actions had not been driven by logic and reason. Everything that she had done sprang from an unrelenting fountain of emotional chaos. She had been raised to be a princess of granite and diamonds--all hard edges and cool to the touch. Every other part of her was to be locked up in a prison guarded by a savage beast with sharp claws and piercing teeth. 

So when she looked back at the betrayals that she had so deeply felt, she knew that she had just mistakenly thought her pain was emotion and not the beast let loose. She had thought that she could turn everyone inside out and take out the pieces of them that were undesirable and messy. She had deluded herself into thinking that everyone should be given a cage to imprison the pieces that create weakness and leave the strongest amongst them vulnerable. 

And, she had come close to accomplishing it. She had the skill and resources. She had the chance to perfect the variables on Earth that took away the common sense of a unified world. She could have created hallowed ground on the one Earth that was left. It had all been within her reach...but the circumstances as they were disrupted her necessary sacrifices. She had entered into a partnership thinking that she was too righteous and too smart to be derailed by the machinations of Lex Luthor. 

Lena had been playing too many hands and, in the middle of it all, forgotten what game she had been playing and the reasons that she had been playing it. But, most of all, she had forgotten about the beast that lived inside of her. She had started to believe in all the comfortingly nice things that Kara Danvers said about her. She had allowed herself to see herself through the rose colored glasses that her best friend freely and happily offered to her. 

“ _ You’re beautiful _ ,” Kara had said. “ _ You’re a good person...Not like your mother...Not like Lex… _ ”. 

Kara had fed Lena a beautiful lie surrounded by white picket fences and ballads about love and hope. Like a fool, Lena had believed it all because Kara had believed. She put aside her own origin story and drank from the well of damnable kindness that Kara gave to her. 

It wasn’t that Kara had secrets and lied to her about being Supergirl that had awoken Lena’s beast. That would have been too...easy and mundane a reason for so desperately trying to fix the world. It hadn’t been much about Kara’s lies at all. 

It was about how she felt in that moment when she held a gun to Lex and he had revealed such an obvious truth about Kara being Supergirl. It was in that moment, that she felt the power in crossing the line that she had only flirted with before. She shot an unarmed man in the name of love and justice...and it broke the piece of her that so carefully had been locked away and guarded by the Luthors’ lies and deceit.

It left her vulnerable.

Lex had fallen from the bullet and Lena had been left alone with his corpse. She looked down at her deceased brother until she could no longer stand the consequences of being a hero. So when she turned from him, she knew that just walking away would be foolish and naive. She took the opportunity to explore Lex’s bunker and found yet another of the Luthor secrets that had been kept from her. 

It had looked so innocuous when she found it--just a simple amulet, Kryptonian in origin. Probably another thing discovered in Lex’s obsession to know all things and possess all things that could harm a Super. She had reached for it intent on destroying anything that could further harm Supergirl, because in this version of the story, she protected the world by protecting Kara. She had been and always would do the things that Supergirl could not. She would be Kara’s Dark Knight. 

But that had all fallen apart the moment her fingers touched the cold stone. Everything changed. Everything. Because she remembered thousands of years of humanities sins and the part that she played in it. She remembered her last life and how there was no saving a broken world. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Is this what one does after they try to destroy the world_ , Lena silently wondered. She was sitting in a room with Kara and Kara’s comrades hearing a debrief from Alex Danvers about what was yet unresolved between them and Lex Luthor. He had the means to take down all the heroes on the Final Earth, and they were the lucky ones tasked with taking him down. 

It was all very serious and dire, and every one of them needed to do their best to make sure that Lex’s madness didn’t end the world as they knew it. But, it was somewhat difficult for Lena to refocus and concentrate on taking on her brother when she had so recently been in league with him. 

She couldn’t help but feel like she was an anachronism sitting conspicuously apparent in the center of Hero HQ. She didn’t fit there--couldn’t fit. But, that particular feeling was something she was already all too familiar with. It was how she had always felt--like she was always just a step out of sync with everyone else.

“Lena?” It wasn’t Kara’s voice that brought Lena away from her reverie, but the soft touch of Kara’s hand on her forearm that pulled her attention back to their present circumstance. 

“I’m sorry,” Lena apologized as she pulled her arm out from under Kara’s hand. “I was just trying to think of any other places that Lex would go.” She lied and gave a self deprecating laugh. “What did I miss?” 

She could see Kara trying to hide the hurt from her pulling away from what was meant as a comforting touch, but Lena had not been ready for Kara’s comfort. This room full of people and their good intentions had unknowingly begun to suffocate her. 

“Alex wanted to know if you thought you could try and get into Brainy’s head to figure out what exactly Lex got away with,” J’onn helpfully replied knowing that the tension between Lena and Kara could consume all of them with distraction if allowed to. 

“I--I could try,” Lena offered, doing her very best to refocus on being the woman that they had grown to know and accept over the last few years. 

“Good,” Alex nodded. “Since he’s the only one that was in that room with Lex, he’s the only one that can tell us what exactly he did to Leviathan.”

“I’ll start working on it,” Lena said and then quickly made her escape. She easily recognized that she was much more grounded when she had immediate purpose and her mind wasn’t left to meander down winding roads full of mixed signals and missed opportunities. 

She didn’t look back as she removed herself from the group, even though all eyes were on her as she left. She could even still feel the whisper of Kara’s warmth against her skin as her friend had so easily slipped back into offering casual physical comfort. It was as if they had somehow collectively agreed that Lena belonged to them despite their recent history. 

It all seemed just so casual and normal, and that’s the very last thing that Lena wanted. She had not wanted to go back to the way things had been before she had strayed. She didn’t want what she had done to be turned into bygones. She wanted the spotlight to be shun on her so that she could be dissected and studied until they saw _her_ , until they noticed that something inside of her had risen...or broken. That point had not yet been made clear to her.

“Not now,” Lena whispered to herself, belatedly realizing that Kara could likely hear anything that she said within reasonable expectation of privacy. If not visually dissected, Lena could at least still be monitored as if she were still part of the trouble ahead. 

Lena took in a deep breath, trying to physically move herself from the ways her mind lingered in the winding roads of her ruin. She ignored the flashbacks of memories that pulsed in her veins, released the breath, and then went about trying to find the proper tools to hack Brainiac-5’s memories.

***

She didn’t know how long she had been tinkering away when she felt Kara’s presence, but it had likely been the appropriate amount of time Kara thought Lena would need to calm the shadows of her self-flagellation. 

“I’ve made some progress,” Lena spoke before Kara had the opportunity to. “He is incredibly complex.” 

Kara stepped further into Lena’s work space. “I know you’re doing everything that you can,” she assured. “I just wanted to check on…” her words halted as if she were unsure of the authority she had to speak, “...you?” 

Lena did not take her eyes from the monitor she had in front of her. “I’m fine.” 

Kara lifted her arm as if she wanted to reach out, but suddenly thought better of it, and her act of selfless comfort fell awkwardly between them. “I would understand if you weren’t,” she said instead.

“Not now, Kara.” Lena kept her eyes focused away from the woman standing next to her, but she could still feel the shift inside of Kara. She could sense the turmoil within her friend that was pulling her in closer even though she was being pushed away. 

One breath, and then two. “So here’s the thing,” Kara spoke in a rush, “I’m kind of afraid that if I leave and we’re still like this then something bad between us will happen that could have been prevented.” 

“Bad between us?” Lena finally moved her attention to Kara. “I thought we finally understood each other,” it was at least a partial truth if not mostly a lie. They had never understood one another, not really. 

“We have,” Kara hurriedly agreed. “We have.” She iterated, her tone softer this time, less sure. 

Lena felt pulled to speak, but she didn’t know what it was that Kara expected her to say. Each of them had expertly given false positives for so long that their friendship had fallen into a deflated reality. And, their shared silence proved that they had both realized that neither of them were ready to be alone together--not in a way that meant they replaced the steady lies with uncertain truths. 

“Okay,” Kara nodded and then took a step back. “You’ll let me know if you need anything?” 

“Yeah,” Lena pushed out the word like she was using her very last breath to form it. 

Kara nodded once more and then turned her back. She took a few steps away before she confessed, “This feels weird.” 

Lena looked at Kara’s back. She gazed at the cape that Kara wore and couldn’t help but see it as a symbol of all the things that were at unrest between them. “It is weird,” she acknowledged. 

Kara only hesitated a second more before she walked away again and left Lena to her work. Lena watched the empty space that Kara had vacated and waited for her heart to settle. Once it did, she turned back to her task and slipped back into her comfort. 

***

Lena only heard part of the conversation going on around her as they all had regrouped and decided on their next steps. She errantly thought about how good Alex was at project management, and that if Alex had chosen a different career then maybe Kara’s sister would have been running an L-Corp subsidiary. Maybe on another earth Alex had decided on corporate life over public service and had never inspired Kara to come out of hiding. 

Alex’s eyes met Lena’s and Lena blinked away her thoughts. “I’m still not quite sure how he did it,” she spoke, hoping that Alex had been prompting her for an update, “but he liquified Leviathan, and in doing so removed them as a threat, but gave Lex something impossibly potent.” 

“Would it be worth undoing what he’s done?” J’onn asked. 

“Brainy risked his life to contain them,” Nia protested. “We shouldn’t just undo that.” 

“He’s going to use it,” Lena gently pushed back. “I can guarantee that’s quite likely one of the last pieces that he needs to finalize his sick machinations.” 

“And you really have no idea what he wants?” Alex asked Lena. “No idea at all?” 

“Alex,” Kara warned. “I’m sure that if she knew then she would have told us.” 

Alex raised her brow and did not take her eyes away from Lena, though her words were for Kara. “Would she?” 

“I would,” Lena spoke up for herself before Kara could once again come to her defense. 

Alex stared at Lena for a moment more, before she swept her gaze to J’onn. “I guess we still haven’t had any success in tracking Lex?” 

“He’s proven to be as elusive as ever,” J’onn replied. “M’gann and I have reached out to our contacts hoping that someone is aware of suspicious activity that might lead to him.” 

“He’s very good at not leaving a trail,” M’gann added. 

“I think he’s been planning this for a very long time,” Kara said as she moved to stand next to her sister. “We probably just need to all take a break and regroup later. We’re not getting anywhere.” 

“Agreed,” J’onn sighed.

“Okay,” Alex nodded. “Let’s take a few hours.” 

Upon mutual agreement, the group broke apart. Nia left to sit with Brainy as they continued to try and bring him closer to recovery. J’onn and M’gann disappeared to wherever they went when they took time alone, and Alex and Kara huddled together to sidebar into whatever conversation needed to be had between them. 

Lena left the room, half expecting that Alex would stop her. She was well aware that Alex had not been done with her interrogation, but she suspected Kara’s continued presence thwarted any ideas Alex had of chasing Lena down.

She found a quiet corner near a window away from the others. She wanted to be left alone, but didn’t want to return to her loft and, quite frankly, she had nowhere else to go. She stared outside at the stars high in the sky, recognizing constellations and pondering on the naming of them. Without the righteous anger towards Kara pumping through her veins, and the maniacal purpose she had in trying to desperately fix humanity, Lena couldn’t help but remember a time before...when the stars had no names.

***

Her tribe had made it to a safe place and were free from the relentless attacks of their enemy. Finally, they could take a moment to take count of how many they had lost and how many they would have to leave behind because they could not be fixed and would slow the whole of them down. She dipped her head, and let herself feel the deep sorrow in knowing that leading her people to safety would never make all of them safe. 

Her hand tightened around the grainy wooden shaft of her dulled spear. It had been blunted in the battle and painted with the blood of her enemies. It should have been a token she held proudly and with honor, but all she felt in holding it was its weight. 

They had been going into battle for many suns, and she wanted nothing more than to have peace. She wanted her people to have peace. They were dwindling in number and would eventually all be too broken and hurt to sustain themselves. The cold days were coming closer, and they had been too preoccupied with the Wolf Clan to properly prepare. 

Their only chance for survival was peace. That’s the only reason she had ventured into the dark veil of night to meet her rival. His people were suffering as hers were, and unless they stopped the battles then they would all die either from the war or from the coming cold. 

They met alone on neutral ground. She came with her spear in hand and he came with his axe. They circled one another assessing all weaknesses from the previous battles. The stench of his blood filled her nostrils and she knew that he had been wounded and he was starting to smell of death. It would not have been risky for her to lash out at him and take his mantle as her own, but..she wanted peace. 

She threw down her spear and then offered him her right arm. With widened eyes he stared down at her dropped weapon. He had been prepared to meet his death, and die an honorable defeat, but she had not given him that. Instead, she showed to him the weakness he had been looking for--mercy. 

He raised his axe and struck out at her. For a single moment, she considered letting the tip of his weapon pierce her flesh--she was exhausted and all she wanted was peace. But, peace would not come from a leader who struck out at unarmed foes. So, she stepped away from the sharpened edge of his axe just as it grazed a fine line across her chest. 

He lost his balance from throwing too much weight behind his attack. His back was turned to her and he stumbled to gain his footing. His breaths came heavy as his overexertion made his wound bleed and his weakened muscles brought him to collapse. 

She watched him fall and then reached down and picked up her spear. Slowly, she walked to her fallen foe. Patiently, she waited for him to turn and face her. Once their eyes met, she saw the fear in his eyes. She had seen that same fear in the eyes of all of the Wolf Clan that had fallen from her spear.

He dropped his axe and held his hands in front of him, trying to placate the bringer of his end. 

She kicked away his weapon and then raised her spear and looked towards the dark sky as she did. She had no desire to watch him die. But, before she could lower her spear into his heart, a light from the sky captured her attention. It was unlike any of the shining lights that roamed the darkness above. It was moving closer, moving too fast.

With her attention diverted, the Wolf Clan leader reached over for his axe and then struck her in the ribs. She buckled at the contact, but still brought her spear down with a vicious strike. Her weight drove the tip into his heart, and she collapsed onto him. 

She managed to roll away just as the flaming light struck the ground. Then, there had been nothing left for her except the darkness of death.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those you have been reading and leaving your feedback and Kudos. Much appreciated.

Lena wrapped her arms around her torso as a self-soothing gesture to fend off the phantom pain that she felt from sharpened stone cutting into her ribs. Absentendly, she wondered what her body would look like if she still held all of her physical scars to go along with the emotional ones. But, alas, that had not been her fate.

"Are you cold?"Kara was once again bulldozing into Lena's solitary confinement with clear intent on trying to make things better. It was as if she just couldn't stop herself from falling into cliche and needed to mend broken fences in the wake of possible irreversible tragedy.

"No," Lena shook her head and slid over on the window ledge she sat on, making room for her friend to come sit beside her.

Kara hesitated before she moved to join Lena, but took the invitation that Lena had denied her mere hours before.

"Still battle ready, I see," Lena commented as Kara sat, her right hand motioning benignly at the emblem on Kara's chest.

Kara looked down at the suit she still wore that identified her as Supergirl to the world. "I guess," she replied as a small blush crept up her neck. "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Well," Lena bumped Kara's shoulder with her own and then quickly pulled away, "I guess you've had other things on your mind."

"I-I have." Kara twisted her hands together.

She seemed to be on the verge of broaching subjects that Lena was not yet ready for so Lena spoke first. "How do I reassure you without actually having to talk about...things?"

"You can't," Kara answered. "I don't know how to blindly trust you anymore."

Lena felt her body leaning back towards Kara, and she consciously forced herself into stillness. She was at risk of falling back into old habits, and she damn well knew better than to let either one of them fall into past comforts. "I know, and I don't expect you to."

"I want to," Kara whispered as if it was just a secret that was only to be shared between the two of them. It didn't matter that they were the only ones in the room to hear it. "And I know we can't go back to what we were," she tightened her hands into fists. "I know that."

"And what were we?" Lena couldn't help but question, couldn't help but make Kara question it either.

Kara petulantly crossed her arms across her chest and stubbornly jutted her chin out as if she were toddler told it was past time for bed. "Friends," she too quickly answered. "Best friends."

"Maybe," Lena softly replied, knowing all too well that her friend had answered on instinct instead of true consternation.

Kara swept her eyes over to lock onto Lena's. "You don't think that we were?"

"We lied, Kara, about so much. You about who you were and me about…" She stopped herself from saying more than she was ready to reveal. "...well, all the things I've been willing to do to save.." again she hesitated, "everyone."

"You really shot Lex?" Kara wondered.

Lena leaned closer to Kara and, in doing so, allowed herself to give into her need to retouch the pieces of her humanity that Kara had always drudged to the surface. She wanted to feel Kara's warmth and steadiness. She wanted to fall into it and have it wash away all of the secrets that she still kept in between them. But, since she could not tell her secrets, she told an ill-timed joke instead. "It obviously didn't take."

A forced smile etched into a cringe across Kara's face.

"Too soon?" Lena asked.

"Yeah," Kara drew out the word.

Lena shrugged and then backed away from the welcomed respite that Kara's touch gave her. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

The following moments between them were spent in silence. Kara was so obviously trying to reconstruct them, but Lena really had no idea how to meet her halfway. She had no idea how to restart something that at its fundamental core had been broken. To be fair, however, she had not really understood before just how broken they had been...not until she had touched the damned amulet and everything within her imploded.

That's not to say that she completely devalued her relationship with Kara. They had taken comfort in their friendship and hadn't been outrageously disingenuous with one another. They had been supportive and loving. They had cried in each other's arms, laughed at their inside jokes, and stayed unified against impossible odds. They had built up so much substance between them that Lena was unsurprised that they had both so carefully ignored the cracks in their foundation.

"One day," Kara softly disrupted their silence. "I will know you and you will know me, and nothing will be able to change that."

Lena didn't formulate a reply simply because she didn't have one. So instead, she reached out and took Kara's hands in her own. She took a second to accept how well Kara's hands fit with hers, and let them soothe some of the ruin that had become the mashup of Lena''s memories.

"I know that you care, Lena." Kara tightened her grip. "And I know that you're struggling, and I know that you either don't want my help or aren't ready to ask for it, but," Kara's breath caught.. "But will you please promise me that you won't hurt me again."

Lena tried to respond, but Kara quickly cut her off, "I know that you're doing everything to help stop Lex, and I know that you're on my side but…" her words trailed off as if the courage she mustered up to speak had run its course.

"Neither of us can promise that, Kara," Lena too logically reasoned. She forced her head to speak before her heart, because her heart was bursting at its seams and ready to apologize over and over, and it had even wanted to tell Kara everything when she had gone to Kara's apartment to make amends. It had wanted to tell Kara what had happened after she shot Lex.

It selfishly wanted Kara to know everything so that they could fast forward to the part where Kara forgave her and they moved onto whatever happy ending that they could get a hold of-she could take over LexCorp, rebuild her House, and Kara could move on to writing cutting edge exposes and protecting National City.

But, Kara had been the one that hadn't wanted to talk about it then. She had not yet been ready to move on, and now that she was, Lena knew that the timing was off. Lex and Lillian had their hands on shrunken gods, and even though Kara didn't know it, they were fighting a war that had been going on for millenia.

Lena unclasped her left hand from Kara's and then brought it up to cup her friend's cheek. "I can only promise to do everything, _everything_ that I can to keep you safe from my family."

Kara's eyes widened slightly. She was eager and willing to try and understand. "K-keep," she stumbled over the word, "me safe? How? From what?"

Lena swallowed down the lump of pain at making her ever eager hero to further question Lena's fidelity. "They are Luthors, Kara. We know how to kill Supers." Her hand pressed more firmly against Kara's cheek. "You're not," she swallowed again. "You're not invulnerable."

Lena didn't know why, but Kara began crying. "Neither are you," she offered through her tears.

"I know," Lena acquiesced. "Still, let me do _whatever_ I need to in order to protect you from them."

It was a big ask, with so many layers within it that Lena didn't really expect Kara to agree. She knew that her friend was too noble and too moral to give a Luthor free rein. Lena had already proven that she could not be trusted to sort loose ends alone. Despite the lies and shadows between them, Kara knew that at Lena's core was a woman without fetters when convinced of her own rectitude.

Unblinkingly, Kara met Lena's gaze. "Would you shoot him again?"

Lena didn't need to ask whom it was that Kara spoke of. Despite them sitting alone, Lex Luthor still somehow managed to rest between them. He had been the impetus of their friendship's demise, and was an incredibly preeminent nuisance for such a mortal man.

"Do you really need me to answer that?"

Kara reached up and removed Lena's hand, gently taking it into her own. She stood so that she was facing Lena. "I think that I need to hear it."

Lena took in a breath and readied her answer. She wasn't going to lie, and refused to let her feelings for Kara dictate outcomes that could very well end the world.

"Hey," Nia's voice pulled them away from one another. Their hands dropped apart and Kara tried to hide away her tears.

Nia's eyes roamed over them both, clearly aware that she had stepped into a scene in which she had no part to play. Her body stilled, almost as if she believed that if she didn't move then what she had interrupted between Lena and Kara would continue to play out as if she had never intruded.

"What's going on?" The vulnerable Kara that Lena had been talking to disappeared and was quickly replaced with Supergirl.

Nia looked between Lena and Kara again, her eyes lingered a moment longer on their former villain. Lena raised a challenging brow-silently daring Nia to say or do something that would break the unwritten rule amongst their alliance that barred anyone from meddling in Kara's and her relationship.

"J'onn thinks he's found something," Dreamer only spoke to Kara. She had not met Lena's provocation, not that Lena thought that she would.

"Okay," Kara seemed to try and give her best reassuring smile. "We'll be right there."

Nia nodded and then quickly turned and made her exit. Kara took a few breaths, and Lena wondered if she should just stand up and call their conversation quits. It had felt as if they had been stepping on the precipice of something, but, Lena realized, it always felt as if they were standing on the precipice of... _some thing_.

"I sacrificed Mon-El for the world," Kara eventually whispered-her voice almost too soft for Lena to hear it. "You do what you need to."

Lena closed her eyes for a brief instant as she took in an accepting breath. Perhaps, she thought, Kara was ready to hear the whole truth even if Lena wasn't entirely ready to tell it. Maybe they were both ready to be on the same page, for once.

Kara turned and reached her hand out for Lena. "Are you coming?"

"Of course," Lena rose to take Kara's offering, and easily pushed away her reflex to waste time on confessing things that could wait until their time wasn't consumed with the greater good. Besides, her story couldn't be told in a two minute summary not when it started at the dawn of humankind.

* * *

She woke up screaming and cold from the unending darkness. The sun had begun rising in the sky, the crude axe was still embedded between her ribs, and her slain rival was no longer beside her. Instinct had her reach down and grasp onto the hilt of the weapon and rip it from her.

Her cries echoed against the rocky earth as she pulled-the pain as unrelenting as it had been when she had laid dying staring up at the stars. Once removed, she threw the axe to the side and looked down at the bleeding wound that had been left in its wake.

She didn't know how she had escaped the endless sleep the first time, but knew that she would not be able to escape it again. She had seen her tribespeople die from the same types of injuries and knew better than to think that she would be the exception.

All that she could hope for, was that she had enough strength left to pull herself up and walk the distance back to her tribe so that they knew that she had tried for peace but had failed. They would have to survive the coming cold while their rival clan continued their assault.

With great effort, she rocked her body so that she could give herself the best leverage possible to stand. On her first try, her legs were too weak to hold her and she fell to her knees. On the second, she stumbled and barely managed to catch herself from falling. It was only on her third attempt that she managed to find her footing and center her body so that she didn't topple over once more.

She planted her hand firmly on her bleeding side and took her first steps. It took all of her strength to stay standing, but she gritted her teeth and continued on. Blood from her wound pulsed through her fingers, and she only managed to travel a few steps before she fell again and toppled headfirst to the ground.

It was only then, that she noticed a crater in the earth that had not been there the night before. It was just mere meters away, and at its center was a light that pulsed like untamed fire. A part of her felt the fear of bearing witness to the unknown, but she was a dying soul and her fears did not hold the same sway over her as they did before.

So again, she forced herself to stand and willed her legs to hold her weight. She pushed her body forward. Her feet dragged across the ground, leaving tracks across the earth as she moved, but she stubbornly refused her body's will to collapse.

The call of the unknown had never been so great in her before, but somehow she understood that whatever she was heading towards was her lifeline. She could feel the growing comfort of warmth the closer she got to the light. Each step lessened the pain and lifted the veil of shadows that clouded her mind.

By the time she had reached the edges of the crater, the bleeding had stopped and her skin had begun to mend itself. She no longer had to press her hand against her wound to stop her life from escaping. The pulsing flame had saved her.

She looked into the crater and saw a small boulder at its center. She knew that this was the source of her salvation. It was what had been calling to her.

She slid down into the crater towards it, and then reached her right hand out to touch the glowing surface convinced that there was nothing but great strength to be taken from it. If it could heal her wound just by mere proximity, then she couldn't even imagine what it could do if held within her grasp.

She could save her tribe. She could protect them from the coming cold. She could bring peace.


End file.
